upyr1

Out of the two, I would expect AAA would be easier to gauge depending on the system. Some systems are computer aimed some are human aimed and in either case there are two questions, what is a baseline CEP and what is the CEP we see in DCS?

I do play, I like to build missions and then get frustrated then post something in the forum then go back and play a single player misison

I'm not familar with the system

There are two things to remember, first just becuse a technology is available doesn't mean that it will be used. An example of this would be World War II ship construction. Ships that were designed pre-war were known as gold platers becuse the shipyards and designers cut corners to bring down construction time. The other problem we face is the fact the RedFor we have is rather dated. The aircraft we have are basically early 1990s ventage. I don't know if we could get AI Su-35 or MiG-35s I know there is no way we're getting them flyable. I would love that. Then bringing up the Vietnam War, it is important to remember that during the course of the Rolling Thunder Campaign the North Vietnamese built up a thick air defense network. At their strongest they had over 200 sam batteries the AAA was thick- here is a map of the AA guns in hanoi the icon is a battery five to seven guns at each location. Brown colored gun symbols are 105mm, blue are 85mm, red are 57/37mm and yellow are automatic weapons (I'm guessing 23MM) and the source said the map didn't display all the small caliber guns. Then there is the issue of ED's AI and the fact I don't think it really models an integrated air defense system. During the Vietnam war the North Vietnamese would co-ordinate their fighters so that avoiding sams meant you were going to get jumped by a MiG then the North Vietnamese air force did a great job avoiding detection until it came time to engage. DCS's AI is really focused on individual units and not an army or air force

The closest thing to balance in DCS you will ever see is having contemporary assets and good mission design. NATO equipment was more technologically advanced than Warsaw Pact equipment. That is still the case with Western and Russian and Chinese equipment. Some of this was due to design philosophy, I won't get into the debate as to how much. The West especially after nations started to end conscription tended to favor more expensive high-tech systems while the East tended to favor low-tech systems that would be cheaper to build in bulk. I would love to see ED add modern Red Force aircraft, but as ED's goal is to make things as realistic as possible without getting visited by men in black suits, the only possible way we might see them officially would be as AI assets. I'd have no problems with that. So that leaves us with mods or being creative with mission design. When building missions whether it is single-player, player vs player, or co-op it is up to you the builder to determine how to achieve the right balance. That's not to say there is nothing that ED needs to improve that would as a side effect improve balance without sacrificing realism. This is one of the reasons I am way more excited about older planes than I am about modern ones. The F-4 vs MiG-21 will be a better match-up than the MiG-21 vs Mirage F1 or F-14 (if the engine holds up). Focusing on what we have, balance is achievable through mission design. Have the Red For outnumber the blue, and have a good air defense network. Having said that there are things ED could do to improve things that wouldn't sacrifice realism. Some ideas to improve the ground game would be the following. First add minefields, trenches, and other defensive positions this would make troops harder to hit and a tougher battle than troops out in the open. Next would be better artillery AI, the main problem here is that we are limited to barrage fire as we don't have forward observers. I would love to have AI FAC/FOs either ground or air-based call-in artillery and air strikes instead of relying strickly on pre-programmed strikes Then there needs to be more unit types in general. Training was a big issue here, if we were to build a realistic Desert Storm campaign the US would be set to Ace while the Iraqis would be set to trained.

That is exactly what I meant when I wrote ED limits access to the SDK. If you read what I wrote you will see I never claimed they gave modders any access and the main thing I said is that you use mods at your own risk.

I know ED has decided to limit access to the SDK, so I expect mods to remain a "use at your own risk" item. I do think there us a happy medium between what we have now and what other games have. This the reason that I want the filter, which could also be used to filter out official asset packs as well.

I am not familiar with Arma3 but something like that would be awesome

I honestly don't expect Eagle to spend massive amounts of resources on developing a mod manager. I would expect them to use Nexus or use an existing open source mod manager

The only question here, is what to do when borders are disputed. For example Ossetia, they have declared themselves independent but Georgia says other wise I don't know if we could a dashed line denoting disputed borders would work. I'm thinking AS or AO they would be awesome to add. They could be targets in any mission.

If the HTS is a good enough abstraction, then I would accept something similar in G.

Cuban ace is working on the Skyraider? Cool I

As I stated before they already are used in multiplayer and as you don't want to encounter mods then on line then you shouldn't complain about the filter idea as the entire point is to hide servers that you mods and asset packs that you don't use. Then you will never see a mod ever again in your entire DCS life.

It looks like logic almost caught up to you but you were faster. This is the reason I have a filter on the list. is the fact that you can't expect everyone to have the same mods installed (unless it is a squad that agreed to the same mods) you can however filter out mods you don't have which would make connecting to a server problematic.

I use more than the A-4. I've had to delete some mods becuse they don't work I've manually edited the LAu and I have the facebook group DCS mods

Some replacements would be worse than others, it all depends on the similarities. I'm more interested in a filter There are some flyable mods out there, that I only use as AI assets, the A-4 is clearly not one of them. There are some mods I will only use as AI assets (the Chinese aircraft pack for one) or the VSN F-105. Then there are the pure AI assets.

This is good question I hope we get an answer in the way of a manager

I figure a tag in the mod or a server administrator could set it if no tag exists or the admin doesn't like the replacement. Then solo games the player could set their replacement.

I would venture to guess fair use for none commercial purposes as ED won't make money from mods. Though enabling someone to add custom repositories at their own risk might work.

What would change is the you currently see servers with mods and asset packs you don't have and with the filter you won't.

The replacement suggest the mask idea and the total replacement. The ridiculousness of the mask idea would all depend on what is being masked. For example an F-4E masquerading as an F-4G wouldn't matter that much. Then there is the total replacement which is intended for solo play the idea here is if you download a mission that uses mods you don't have you'll be asked for a replacement. The point is so you can ignore modules

You don't have to use mods. I don't know what percentage of DCSers use mods but there are a lot out there. Which is why I say the filter would help you to avoid them.

We already have the user files section which I figure could be an official repository

Part of the necessary infrastructure is already in place. This is why both a replacement and a filter have been requested. The filter would hide mods and asset packs you don't have and the replacement tag would allow you to connect and use a stand in. Sometimes replacements might be logical other times they might be stupid. The question is how long it will take for any given asset to appear in DCS. Which is part of the reason for the total replacement. One of the mods I have is an Iowa-class battleship. Now if we saw a 1980s Iowa-class battleship appear in DCS core you can bet I am deleting the mod. Whether something is an AI asset or hi controlled official asset are better than mods but mods are better than nothing

The only problem I can see with the replacement idea is when there is no suitable replacement asset. For example I like That and the fact some people don't like mods is the reason I think a filter to hide servers with missing assets would be a good idea. On the mod manager part I am thinking ovgm or some other existing tool might work.